consultancy PM career or engineering PM career

Experts and Professionals, I'm in a dilemma.
My background is Mechanical engineering and I have an MBA in PM.
I have about 1.5 years experience in Inventory Management projects.

I have the following options:
a)I've been offered a job in a public listed company as manager projects in handling their multi million dollar projects.
b) I also have another offer(consultancy) where I'm offered a better pay but it involves different types of projects in different verticals .

Now, I am on a crossroad wherein I have to decide between the two options. considering the fact that i have a long career ahead of me (am 26 y.o.) I need to get this right now, so i wont have any regrets later. So for u to help me i've weighed pros and cons:

Option a) will be hands on projects, will have a dedicated team, move to a new city, new language, very far from home place, pay comparitively less,

option b) consultant. is it normal to be in such a role at initial stage of my career? pay is good, some how i feel it better than the former but my 'mentors' advice me to go for option a).

Popular White Paper On This Topic

What is your tolerance for risk? Consultancy is interesting, and they've sold you on the upside, but the risk is that you're pretty expendable (i.e. only valued to the extent you can perfectly meet your client's needs). You will need excellent communication skills, as well as excellent PM skills and above all, people skills. You would be low person on the team at the consultant, so likely doing more grunt work than lead role. Personally, since I have lower risk tolerance, I'd opt for the first opportunity and continue building that history and experience if a variety of projects before going the consultant route. Good luck, whichever way you choose!

14 years ago (my how time flies), I was faced with a similar decision. I was a Chem Eng being offered field-specific jobs or a consulting career with a big 5 company. The advice I received was this: if you can tolerate long hours, possible travel and own your career--consulting is the better option because you will inherently continue your educations. While I was nervous at the time, I have never regretted going into consulting.

A consulting company will give you so many skills in communication, writing, methodology, management, analytics, etc. As you change clients, possibly industries, you will have new opportunities to learn from as well as see what interests you. I covered Financial Services, Communications and landed in Products (Retail) for several years. I loved it and only left because my tolerance for life as a road warrior had diminished.

During my 9 years as a consultant, I met people that shaped my career and my life. They taught me ethics that I might not have learned otherwise. They taught me that I have to set and meet my own expectations. Most importantly, they taught me how to work and succeed working in teams. Had I gone into my field of education, I don't believe I would be where I am today.

Ask yourself a few more things: Are you a people person? Do you like change? Can you tolerate long hours and hard work for the reward? If you are being paid more, often times it means they expect more (travel, working into the evening, etc). Do you want to manage people / projects--a lot of consulting firms have an "up or out" (e.g., move up or you are out of the company) model?

I don't regret going into the consulting field; I think it was great for me, but it is certainly not great for everyone!!

HI svm
Since option a, deals more with practical issues, and you being involve the project guess is the best decision,
1, you learn how to communicate and how to manage team, since these two are the main pivot in project management.
2, it will be fun persuing that.

I my opinion you should go for options number one. You can always come back for option number 2 later one, but reciprocal of this is difficult. Leave behind pay at the moment, in consultancy you can get good pay anytime specially when you have experience.

Same is my carre path, when i was working in a project bases company and all my pals were getting more perks than me. But when i have joined consulting with good experience, i have left most of them behind..

I spent about 10 years as either an IT contractor (developer) or as PM consultant based on the assignment, need, and money. Personally, I loved those 10 years.

When a project matured (and therefore I got bored), I jumped on another project with another company. Therefore both my skills and adaptability zoomed.

My personal rule of thumb was, if they would give an employee 2 months 60 days) to learn something, I better be producing in 6 days (1/10th the time). That rule kept me as valuable commodity and the longest I was 'unemployed' (either was working or had accepted a contracted and would soon begin working) was 2 weeks.

It is tough on a family (wife and kids), if you have one. Only time I took vacation was between assignments. Once I had assignment in hand, we would take a little time off and have fun and spend our money. Otherwise for two reasons I would work any and all hours and days. The first reason is if you are busy, you can't spend your money and we tried to maintain 6 months to 1 years payments in savings, in case something went wrong and I wasn't working. The second reason is because they paid me for every hour, therefore I made even more then I had budgeted/planned.

Finally, the wife and family got tired of my high intensity pace and they wanted me both closer to home and in a longer term (nested and vested) position. Therefore I settled down to a fairly well paying position with benefits that I had contracted at. Therefore both the company and I knew the culture and responsibilities were a good fit.

Looking back I've never regretted the experience gained as a 'young gun'. And sometimes believe it gives me a level of flexibility/adaptability that long-term "company men" don't have.

I am working in ERP consultancy firm from last five years and desperately looking for a domain change, but not able to find it because of higher salary in present job. Now i am thinking of shifting with lower salary.

Life in consulting companies are very hard. We are not less than doing a police job. No matter at what level you are, you can't avoid frequent travelling and long working hours. There is always a need of urgency in this job..